Virtual College helps organisations tackle GDPR

Virtual College, a global eLearning consultancy and LMS specialist, is helping large and small organisations get to grips with a significant change in Data Protection legislation via a free online course called ‘Introduction to GDPR’ . Alongside the course will be a set of free supporting resources, such as articles, blogs and infographics for organisations to use and share in their companies to help their preparation for change.

Currently, the Data Protection Act 1998 controls how personal information is used by organisations, businesses or the government. However, on the 25 May 2018 this Act will be replaced by a new piece of legislation: the EU General Data Protection Regulation (better known as the GDPR). This is a Europe wide piece of legislation that the UK has chosen to adopt.

Presently there is little detail shared about what is coming, however there are core areas in reporting and auditing that organisations can use now in order to identify any gaps and weaknesses in processes - to prove compliance. It is this area of expertise alongside the courses, where Virtual College can help.

Organisations will welcome Virtual College’s free, easy to digest summary, which outlines the key changes and how this may affect individuals and businesses. It will help them to prepare and mitigate significant risks so that they are ready for when the law changes.

Hannah Brindle, Managing Director of Virtual College, says ‘”The idea behind offering a free introductory online course is to raise awareness about these major changes affecting all UK organisations – supporting companies to prepare for change and begin the process of upskilling staff. Virtual College are highly skilled in developing online interactive and engaging training - inspiring learning for all is what we’re about!”

The overview examines several key changes between the Data Protection Act and the GDPR:

Understanding the role of the data controller (the person who decides how and why data is processed) and the relationship with the data subject (the individual the personal data is about.)
The need to acquire clear and explicit consent
The rights of the data subject
New rules around subject access requests
The increased power of the Information Commissioner

At the end of the summary, a series of quiz questions are included to test knowledge and comprehension and a review video is provided to aid retention. This has been included as a proven way to not only help evaluate the pass rate of those who have taken the course, but also to make it interactive – a proven method to help individuals retain information.

Readers can find out more and access the Introduction to GDPR resources from Virtual College's website.